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LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

HELMUT   BONHEIM 


ON    MONEY 


ON    MONEY 


BY 

ANTHONY  W.  THOROLD  D.D. 

LATE  LORD   BISHOP  OF   WINCHESTER 


NEW   YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1896 


©ntocrsitg  iprtss : 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


ON    MONEY 


1  THE   SILVER   IS  MINE,  AND  THE  GOLD   IS   MINE, 
SAITH  THE  LORD  OF   HOSTS." 


IT  has  been  truly  said  by  Sir  Henry 
Taylor,  that  there  are  few  things  in 
the  world  of  greater  importance  than 
money.  To  despise  it  is  an  affectation 
of  virtue,  and  to  ignore  it  is  a  confession 
of  folly. 

See  what  it  can  do  !  To  the  bulk  of 
mankind  it  is  the  focus  of  interest,  at 
once  the  stimulus  of  effort,  and  the 
instrument  of  power.  In  a  real  and 
intelligible  sense  it  buys  food,  heals 
disease,  builds  houses,  prints  books* 
imparts  knowledge,  spreads  education, 
moves  armies,  augments  happiness, 
humanises  life,  promotes  religion.  If 


6  On  Money 

it  is  not  an  end,  it  is  certainly  a  means 
to  an  end.  In  every  condition  of  life, 
and  in  all  the  circumstances  of  it,  we 
are  perpetually  handling  and  using  it 
for  one  purpose  or  another.  The 
temptations  to  which  it  exposes  us, 
the  sacrifices  to  which  it  invites  us, 
the  good  or  the  harm  for  which  it  en- 
ables us,  on  the  one  hand,  help  us  to 
see  why  God  gave  Solomon  riches  as 
a  special  mark  of  favour  ;  on  the  other, 
to  understand  how  St.  Paul  could  write 
of  it,  "  The  love  of  money  is  the  root 
of  all  evil"  (i  Tim.  vi.  6). 

To  use  money  we  must  possess  it ; 
and  whether  we  inherit  it  from  others, 
or  acquire  it  by  our  own  exertion,  it  is 
equally  a  gift  from  God,  and  a  trust  for 
us. 

Any  one  can  see  that  in  making 
money  the  conscience  is  incessantly 
confronted  with  the  eternal  inevitable 
laws  of  justice  and  truth.  The  exact 
line  of  demarcation  between  right  and 
wrong  is  always  invisible ;  but  those 


On  Money  j 

who  have  most  felt  the  difficulty  of 
finding  it  for  their  own  guidance  are 
also  most  likely  to  be  indulgent  to  the 
difficulties  of  their  neighbours.  So, 
when  we  hear  a  surprise  expressed 
that  Christian  people  can  be  found  to 
justify  either  the  manufacture  or  the 
sale  of  such  articles  of  consumption  as 
human  infirmity  converts  to  purposes 
of  sin,  will  not  a  kindly  common  sense 
bid  them  go  a  little  farther  back  in  the 
problem,  and  ask  how  ever  it  could 
please  a  good  and  just  God  to  create 
the  hop  and  the  vine  ?  There  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  use 
and  habit  do  blunt  the  edge  of  con- 
science, and  that  self-interest,  when 
stimulated  by  a  love  of  gain,  closely 
shuts  the  eye  to  the  moral  of  the  case 
and  thus  blinds  it  to  the  harm. 

Several  other  points,  however,  less 
palpable,  but  quite  as  important,  soon 
turn  up  in  the  intricate,  but  interesting 
casuistry  of  this  part  of  the  subject.  Is 
it  possible  to  make  too  much  money  ? 


8  On  Money 

Is  speculation  lawful  ?  To  what  ex- 
tent, and  on  what  grounds,  are  we 
justified  in  praying  for  commercial 
success  ? 

A  certain  degree  of  accumulation 
seems  consistent  with  that  instinct  of 
wise  forethought  which,  like  our  other 
instincts,  we  may  reasonably  conceive 
to  have  been  implanted  in  us  for 
legitimate  indulgence.  When  St.  Paul 
appeals  to  the  habit  of  mankind,  in 
parents  laying  up  for  children  rather 
than  children  for  parents,  as  a  ground 
for  his  own  unwillingness  to  be  bur- 
densome to  the  Church,  his  recognition 
of  the  practice  is  tantamount  to  an 
approval  of  it.  It  is  not  only  reason- 
able, but  praiseworthy,  that  the  head 
of  a  family  should  by  diligence  and 
frugality  be  in  a  position  to  spare  his 
widow,  at  the  moment  when  she  has 
care  and  grief  enough  in  other  ways, 
the  additional  anxiety  of  a  sudden 
poverty;  to  give  his  sons  enough  to 
start  them  with  in  their  professions, 


On  Money  9 

and  to  send  his  daughters  not  quite 
empty-handed  from  their  father's  house 
to  their  husbands'.  The  hardest  life 
and  much  quiet  self-denial  are  un- 
speakably sweetened  to  a  manly  and 
generous  nature  by  the  thought  that 
when  the  heads  and  hands  that  have 
so  steadily  worked  for  others  are 
becoming  dust  in  the  ground,  the  love 
that  nerved  to  that  work,  and  made  it 
pleasanter  than  any  selfish  indulgence, 
will  have  secured  its  reward. 

But  it  is  quite  another  thing  for  a 
Christian  deliberately  to  make  his  life 
one  long  grind  in  a  counting-house, 
and  to  turn  not  only  his  youth,  but 
even  his  later  years,  into  a  perpetual 
slavery,  only  to  swell  his  personal 
possessions,  and,  perhaps,  to  point  in 
his  own  case  the  Saviour's  mournful 
warning — "  Woe  unto  you  who  are 
rich,  for  ye  have  received  your  conso- 
lation "  (Luke  vi.  24). 

Of  course,  political  economy  will 
treat  any  hint  like  this  with  un- 


io  On  Money 

disguised  contempt,  and  sufficiency 
is  a  very  relative  word  ;  and  few  young 
men  have  sense  enough  to  prefer  to 
make  their  fortune  for  themselves  ;  and 
what  in  past  and  simpler  days  would 
have  been  called  a  competent,  though 
modest,  dowry  for  an  English  gentle- 
woman, might  now  hardly  suffice  to 
supply  her  with  clothes.  Still,  wealth 
with  all  its  subtle  joys  and  sense  of 
power  is  a  great  snare  and  peril.  To 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  us  covet- 
ousnesB  is  idolatry,  for  we  put  our 
money  in  the  place  of  God  to  us,  when 
we  treat  it  as  our  consolation  and 
security — the  source  of  our  dignity, 
the  weapon  of  our  defence.  Yet  it  is 
a  poor  god  to  worship,  when  it  takes 
all  the  leisure  from  the  life,  all  the 
comfort  from  the  home,  all  the  bright- 
ness from  the  face,  all  the  nobleness 
from  the  character.  If  you  succeed,  it 
is  at  the  loss  both  of  the  sweetness 
and  repose  that  are  the  true  charms  of 
human  existence ;  if  you  fail,  you  lose 


On  Money  1 1 

both  worlds.  Thus  it  is  that  to  the 
man  who  fears  God  and  values  his 
own  consistency,  and  understands 
something  of  human  nature,  and  stead- 
ily looks  on  into  the  other  world,  the 
question,  sooner  or  later,  will  and 
must  occur,  "  Is  not  the  time  come 
that  I  have  enough  ;  and  shall  not  I 
better  please  God,  and  help  my  own 
salvation  by  retiring  from  the  anxie- 
ties of  my  career  ?  "  Or,  if  such  may 
not  be,  and  it  does  sometimes  happen 
that  the  entire  relinquishment  of  ac- 
tive employment  has  a  serious  if  not 
fatal  result,  a  good  man  may  easily 
resolve  with  himself  that  the  occupa- 
tion he  will  continue  for  his  health's 
sake,  but  henceforward  the  profit  of  it 
shall  be  for  God. 

Yet  there  is  one  noble  justification 
for  that  plodding  and  almost  insatiable 
pursuit  of  wealth  that  so  markedly 
characterises  modern  Englishmen.  I 
mean  the  secret  resolute  aim  of  accom- 
plishing, single-handed,  some  blessed 


12  On  Money 

Christian  enterprise  that  shall  live 
after  us,  and  work  by  us,  long  after 
the  silver  and  gold  we  have  acquired 
have  passed  to  our  heirs.  There  are 
many  among  us  who  have  done  this ; 
many  more  who  are  capable  of  it  if  it 
were  pressed  home  to  their  consciences 
as  a  duty  for  God. 

What  was  the  real,  the  beautiful 
secret  of  that  passionate  love  of 
poverty  wnicn,  with  all  the  self-love 
that  spoiled  it,  and  the  small  extrava- 
gances that  disfigured  it,  was  still  such 
a  moral  force  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  the  Church  had  all  but  forgotten 
how  to  overcome  the  world  ?  Was  it 
not  in  this,  that  it  was  endured  for 
Christ's  sake,  as  a  means  of  resem- 
bling and  honouring  Him  ? 

Why  cannot  we  be  content  also  to 
be  rich  for  Christ's  sake,  and  to  try  to 
say,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word, 
"I  have  learned  both  to  be  full  and 
to  be  hungry,  both  to  abound  and  to 
suffer  need  ?  "  ( Phil.  iv.  1 2).  There 


On  Money  13 

are  hundreds  and  thousands  of  wealthy 
men  and  women  in  England  at  this 
moment  not  only  making  a  Christian 
profession,  but  eminently  worthy  of  it, 
who  simply,  from  want  of  direction, 
are  blind  to  their  opportunities  for 
glorifying  God  through  the  wealth 
lying  idle  in  their  hands.  They  have 
ample  for  their  heirs,  and  for  their 
own  needs,  and  for  the  decorous  con- 
ventional charities  that  society  expects 
of  them — ample,  also,  for  some  indi- 
vidual act  of  useful,  practical,  per- 
manent munificence,  which  might  be 
their  vase  of  ointment  for  the  head 
of  their  blessed  Lord,  fragrant  and 
honourable  till  He  comes  back  in  His 
glory.  Yes,  each  Christian  to  whom 
the  blessed  opportunity  is  given — and 
many  more  possess  it  than  care  to 
know — should  resolve  to  leave  behind 
some  mark  of  real  self-denial,  to  be 
his  monument  when  he  is  gone.  A 
church,  a  school,  a  bed  in  a  hospital, 
a  mission-house,  the  support  of  a  mis- 


14  On  Money 

sionary  :  let  us  choose  what  we  please, 
only  let  us  do  something.  The  more 
sacrifice  it  involves,  the  more  precious 
in  Christ's  sight  will  the  offering  be. 
"  She  hath  done  what  she  could " 
(Mark  xiv.  8).  How  few  since  Mary's 
day  have  earned  that  praise ! 

In  trying  to  think  out  the  abstract 
lawfulness  of  speculation,  the  first 
thing  to  make  clear  is  what  specula- 
tion means ;  for  there  are  two  very 
different  things  expressed  by  the  same 
word.  If  we  simply  mean  by  it  the 
bold  and  prompt  seizing  of  an  oppor- 
tunity, through  the  clear  foresight  that 
guesses  the  turn  of  the  market,  or  the 
practised  skill  that  calculates  how  the 
events  of  the  day  will  affect  exchange, 
then  it  is  but  the  legitimate  exercise 
of  a  special  and  valuable  kind  of 
talent.  The  welfare  of  society  is  often 
greatly  promoted  by  the  happy  ven- 
tures of  commercial  enterprise  ;  and  to 
forbid  such  efforts  would  be  but  a 
feeble  and  silly  attempt  to  paralyse 


On  Money  1 5 

the  energy  and  to  impede  the  progress 
of  mankind. 

But  where  speculation  is  .a  mere 
gambling  throw  in  the  dark,  the  rash 
impulse  of  a  lazy  and  ignorant  hardi- 
hood to  make  in  a  week  what  honest 
work  could  barely  make  in  a  year ; 
imperilling  precious  interests  on  the 
chance  of  a  die,  and  fostering  in  the 
character  just  those  instincts  and  ten- 
dencies that  make  industry  intolerable, 
and  tempt  men  to  exchange  the  serious 
business  of  life  for  the  risks  of  a  lot- 
tery, the  individual  speculator  not  only 
injures  himself,  but  he  defrauds  the 
community.  He  injures  himself,  for 
he  can  never  enjoy  that  real  sweetness 
of  success  with  which  honest  labour 
sooner  or  later  rewards  us ;  he  de- 
frauds the  community,  since  it  does 
not  receive  from  him  that  contribution 
of  diligent  and  useful  production  which 
is  wanted  to  augment  the  general  capi- 
tal of  the  State. 

To  a  Christian  mind  one  key  to  the 


1 6  On  Money 

difficulty  may  be  found  in  that  practice 
of  asking  God's  blessing  on  any  pro- 
posed enterprise,  which  is  the  habit  of 
those  who  fear  God. 

There  are  clearly  two  distinct  lines 
of  thought  in  which  prayer  about  tem- 
poral blessings  may  be  conceived  to 
run.  There  is  the  prayer  for  divine 
guidance  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  any 
particular  scheme  under  consideration. 
"  Will  God  approve  my  doing  this  ?  " 
There  is  also  the  prayer  for  divine 
blessing  on  the  scheme,  when  the  de- 
cision has  been  made.  "  May  God 
prosper  this  now  that  it  is  to  be 
done  ! "  It  is  certain  that  if  good  men 
were  more  careful  to  ask  for  counsel 
on  the  propriety  of  any  particular 
enterprise  before  making  up  their 
minds  to  it,  instead  of  first  deciding, 
and  then  asking  for  success,  many 
mistakes  would  be  avoided,  and  much 
distress  saved. 

A  man,  with  wife  and  children,  has 
five  thousand  pounds  at  his  disposal, 


On  Money  17 

which  he  has  rut  out  at  moderate 
interest  on  valid  security.  One  day 
he  sees  a  prospectus  of  a  railway 
across  Honduras,  or,  perhaps,  a  Japan 
loan,  which  would  pay  him  fifteen  per 
cent.  His  imagination  is  fired.  He 
appreciates  with  a  vivid  and  perilous 
facility  the  comforts  that  could  be  pro- 
cured, and,  perhaps,  the  money  put 
by,  with  so  much  additional  income. 
He  cannot  see  anything  wrong  in 
doing  the  best  he  can  for  himself; 
really,  there  is  hardly  anything  to  ask 
about.  He  makes  up  his  mind,  acts, 
then  prays  to  be  prospered,  and  waits 
the  result  of  his  venture,  fortified  by 
the  delusive  consciousness  of  having 
implored  the  blessing  of  God.  But 
had  he  first  of  all  asked  to  be  guided 
as  to  the  expediency,  as  well  as  the 
lawfulness,  of  the  step  he  was  propos- 
ing, He  who  gives  "wisdom  to  all 
men  "  might  have  helped  him  to  see 
that  the  augmented  income,  plus  the 
risk,  the  anxiety,  the  feverishness  of 


1 8  On  Money 

mind  about  money  engendered  by  such 
transactions  in  ordinary  natures,  and 
the  love  of  it  for  its  own  sake  so  easily 
fostered  by  any  temporary  success,  do 
not  counterbalance  the  smaller  income 
and  the  surer  investment,  and  the  un- 
broken tranquillity.  The  "still  small 
voice "  might  have  said,  '  Leave  it 
alone :  they  that  will  be  rich  fall  into 
temptation  and  a  snare.'  Trust  me  " 
(i  Tim.  vi.  9). 

But,  assuming  that  our  enterprise  is 
lawful,  and  that  we  are  justifiably  con- 
fident of  the  divine  sanction  on  our 
undertakings,  there  still  remains  a 
question  of  moment  for  those  who, 
just  because  they  so  fully  believe  in 
prayer,  desire  to  pray  reasonably  and 
according  to  the  will  of  God.  Can  it 
be  right  directly  to  ask  God  to  prosper 
our  efforts — which  in  some  cases  may 
amount  to  a  request  for  ten  thousand 
pounds  ?  or  is  it  better  to  confine  our- 
selves simply  to  laying  the  matter 
before  Him,  in  the  simple  confidence 


On  Money  19 

of  loyal  children  who  wish  to  tell  Him 
everything,  knowing  that  He  will  bless 
us  in  this  way  or  in  that  (without  our 
direct  asking),  as  He  may  see  it  to  be 
for  our  good?  The  question  is  com- 
plicated by  many  considerations ;  and 
every  man  must  have  liberty  of  con- 
science about  it.  The  writer's  own 
conviction,  however,  is  clear,  that 
while  in  spiritual  things  we  should 
both  ask  and  trust,  for  there  we  can 
have  no  doubt  about  the  good  of  what 
we  ask  for,  in  temporal  things  (beyond 
actual  necessities),  after  having  poured 
out  our  heart  before  God,  we  should 
trust  and  not  ask. 

For  temporal  things,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  we  are  indeed  both  permitted 
and  commanded  to  pray.  "Give  us 
this  day  our  daily  bread  "  (Matt.  vi.  i) 
is  a  petition  of  our  Saviour's  own 
dictating,  and,  though  one  man's  daily 
bread  may  mean  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  another  man's  ;  and  it  is 
not  safe  to  trust  every  one  with  the 


2o  On  Money 

definition  of  what  the  necessaries  of 
life  may  be,  there  is  nevertheless  a 
distinction  both  reasonable  and  intelli- 
gible, between  the  prayer  that  asks  God 
according  to  His  promise  to  supply  our 
necessities,  and  the  prayer  that  asks  of 
Him  to  pour  vast  wealth  into  our  lap. 
Our  modern  society  is  in  such  a  state 
of  mutual  interdependence  and  entangle- 
ment, that  often  for  me  to  gain,  my 
neighbour  must  lose ;  and  so  the  event 
that  enriches  me,  improverishes  him. 
Then,  though  it  may  be  good  for  one 
man  suddenly  to  step  into  a  position 
of  affluence,  it  may  be  ruinous  for 
another  man  ;  and  God,  loving  the  two 
men  equally,  will,  just  because  of  that 
love,  in  one  case  bestow,  in  the  other 
deny. 

Material  prosperity,  so  far  from  being 
the  highest  good,  is  in  itself  neither 
good  nor  evil ;  but  it  will  turn  to  good 
or  evil,  according  to  the  character 
with  which  it  is  brought  in  contact, 
and  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  met  and 


On  Money  21 

used.  Surely  a  thoughtful  parent 
would  pause  and  muse,  before  out  of 
a  choice  of  blessings  at  his  disposal 
for  some  beloved  child  he  decided  on 
the  gift  of  great  riches.  May  we  not 
reverently  suppose  that  thoughts  of 
this  kind  pass  through  the  heart  of 
our  heavenly  Father  as  He  looks 
round  on  us;  and  is  not  there  wisdom 
in  the  self-control  that  refuses  to  press 
Him  for  a  gift,  which  may  be  health, 
and  may  be  poison  ? 

For  nothing  tries  a  man  more  than 
the  sudden  loss  or  gain  of  money. 
The  loss  of  it,  while  it  goads  some 
men  to  an  amazing  and  almost  noble 
effort  to  recover  it,  will  so  sour  and 
paralyse  others,  that  henceforth  they 
cease  to  be  capable  of  further  struggle 
with  the  world.  The  gain  of  it  is 
good  for  some,  is  perhaps  worse  for 
more.  Men  who,  while  enjoying  a 
modest  competency,  have  been  simple, 
kind,  and  charitable,  have  found  in  a 
great  accession  of  wealth  an  instant 


22  On  Money 

occasion  for  a  sordid  and  wretched 
meanness.  A  sudden  rush  of  selfish- 
ness will  sometimes  flood  the  heart 
that  thinks  itself  permanently  raised 
over  the  necessities  of  friendship,  or 
even  the  protection  of  Providence. 
Summer  time  parches  the  soil  as  well 
as  ripens  the  harvest ;  and  to  need 
man's  sympathy  is  a  great  help  to 
giving  it. 

If  the  first  thing  about  money  is  to  get 
it,  the  second  is  to  keep  it.  And  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  keep  it.  Most  people 
have  some  sort  of  screw  loose  in  their 
private  money  matters.  Either  they 
invest  it  foolishly,  or  they  spend  it 
wastefully  ;  or,  what  is  almost  the 
worst  possible  thing  to  do  with  it,  they 
hoard  it  covetously  ;  and  either  wa}', 
it  is  their  Lord's  money  hidden  down  in 
the  earth,  instead  of  being  put  out  to 
use  for  Him. 

The  investment  of  money  is  just  one 
of  those  questions  which  it  is  real 
wisdom  to  think  over  very  carefully, 


On  Money  23 

till  our  mind  is  made  up  about  it ; 
and  then,  when  once  settled,  it  should 
be  put  away  upon  a  shelf,  to  be  left 
there.  Money,  like  every  other  talent, 
is  to  be  made  the  most  of;  and  it  is 
our  duty  to  see  that  we  do  make  the 
most  of  it,  or  it  is  worth  just  so  much 
less,  both  for  our  own  use,  and  our 
power  of  sharing  it  with  others.  But 
making  the  most  of  it  does  not  ne- 
cessarily mean  getting  the  highest 
possible  return  for  it ;  simply,  the 
highest  interest  compatible  with  good 
security. 

Now  it  is  quite  true  that  to  be  able 
to  have  all  one's  property  invested  in 
land,  or  consols,  there  had  better  be 
a  great  deal  of  it ;  and  that  the  differ- 
ence between  three  per  cent,  and  six 
per  cent,  will  often  mean  to  the  strug- 
gling father  of  a  large  family  the  salary 
of  a  governess,  or  a  boy's  schooling,  or 
the  summer  holiday,  or  the  annual 
premium  on  his  life  insurance.  Still,  the 
old  duke's  maxim  that  "  high  interest 


24  On  Money 

means  bad  security"  is  a  perfectly 
sound  one.  A  little  more  income  for 
ten  years,  at  the  cost  of  losing  all  for 
ever  afterwards,  is  a  poor  bargain ;  and 
an  assured,  if  smaller,  income  has  a 
rest  and  a  comfort  about  it  that,  to  a 
dabbler  in  foreign  bonds,  or  speculative 
railways,  is  often  an  object  of  profound 
envy. 

It  is  an  old  proverb,  "never  to  carry 
all  your  eggs  in  the  same  basket ; "  and 
if  your  fortune  is  invested  in  more 
securities  than  one,  it  must  be  a 
storm  indeed  that  robs  you  of  every- 
thing. Usually  a  house,  if  judiciously 
chosen,  is  a  sensible  investment.  It  is 
natural  to  prefer  to  be  one's  own  land- 
lord. To  be  living  under  a  roof  that 
belongs  to  us  is  not  only  to  live  at  less 
rent ;  but  it  permits  us  to  drive  a  nail 
into  the  wall,  or  to  throw  two  rooms 
into  one  without  an  uneasy  dread  of 
the  landlord's  displeasure.  For  country 
people,  it  unquestionably  gives  an 
interest  to  life  to  watch  the  trees  grow 


On  Money  2  5 

up  that  your  hands  have  planted  ;  and 
year  by  year  to  make  fresh  improve- 
ments in  what  you  can  bequeath  to 
others,  more  beautiful  and  more  valu- 
able than  when  it  first  became  your 
own. 

After  all,  as  we  have  said  already, 
the  great  aim  should  be  to  do  the  best 
we  can  in  putting  out  our  money,  that 
we  may  be  saved  all  anxiety  about  it 
afterwards.  Very  few  persons  out  of 
business  life  can  be  safely  trusted  to 
make  their  own  investments.  It  is 
money  well  spent  to  procure  the  best 
advice  on  the  subject ;  and  it  is  true 
economy  when  the  advice  is  given,  to 
take  it.  Fidgetiness  often  leads  to  covet- 
ousness ;  perpetually  to  be  fancying 
that  we  are  on  the  point  of  being 
ruined,  or  that  we  are  making  less 
interest  than  we  might  make  if  we 
managed  more  cleverly,  deteriorates 
the  character,  and  robs  the  life  of 
peace.  Greediness  for  a  higher  in- 
come often  brings  its  wholesome 


26  On  Money 

punishment  by  an  eventual   loss  both 
of  capital  and  income. 

If  the  first  thing  about  money  is  to 
get  it,  and  the  second  to  keep  it,  the 
third  is  to  use  it.  And  this,  perhaps, 
needs  the  greatest  wisdon  of  all.  Re- 
member what  it  implies,  and  what  it 
includes.  It  implies  foresight,  so  as 
to  be  ready  for  losses  ;  self-control,  to 
be  able  to  go  without  things  that  we 
should  vastly  like,  but  cannot  afford ; 
patience,  to  know  how  to  wait  for 
what  we  wish  for  ;  discretion,  clearly 
to  perceive  what  will  suit  us  best ; 
self-denial,  that  we  may  help  others  ; 
conscientiousness,  that  in  all  we  spend 
we  may  please  God ;  good  sense,  to 
draw  the  right  line  between  extremes 
on  either  side ;  a  joyous  liberty  of 
heart,  to  trust  the  kindness  of  God, 
that  He  means  us  to  be  happy.  If 
not  to  offend  in  word  is  one  sign  of 
perfection,  to  make  a  right  use  of 
money  is  another.  It  is  significant 
that  Dives  went  to  his  trouble,  not  for 


.    On  Money  27 

viciousness,  but  for  self-indulgence. 
It  was  the  snare  of  his  great  posses- 
sions that  stole  from  Christ  the  soul  of 
the  rich  young  man,  whom  to  see  was 
to  love. 

See,  too,  what  it  includes.  Certainly 
three  things  ;  some  would  say  four. 
There  is  maintenance,  and  usefulness, 
and  enjoyment,  and — may  we  not  add  ? 
— saving.  Each  of  these  has  its  own 
natural  order;  each  its  own  relation 
and  proportion  to  all  the  rest. 

Clearly  we  must  live  :  in  other 
words,  we  must  eat  and  drink,  and 
wear  clothes,  and  live  under  shelter — 
the  needs,  it  may  be  said,  even  of 
savages.  But  our  artificial  and  civilised 
life  makes  other  demands  on  us  still. 
There  are  children  to  educate ;  ser- 
vants to  feed  and  pay ;  now  and  then 
doctor's  bills  ;  occasionally  lawyers' ; 
and  for  the  absolutely  needful  claims 
of  a  middle-class  English  household, 
with  its  varied  and  complicated  and 
incessant  expenditure,  the  one  word 


28  On  Money 

maintenance  means  a  heavy  drain  of 
money.  By  usefulness,  I  mean  that 
proportion  of  money  which,  before  any 
other  expenditure  is  incurred,  next 
after  our  maintenance,  should  deliber- 
ately, methodically,  and  cheerfully,  be 
put  by  for  God.  Enjoyment  will  in- 
clude all  that  personal  expense  which, 
within  just  limits,  and  according  to  the 
discretion  of  the  individual  conscience 
is  a  legitimate  source  of  human  joy. 
Saving  or  putting  by,  either  in  the 
shape  of  a  life  insurance,  or  in  the 
private  laying  up  of  a  certain  amount 
of  income  for  sickness  or  old  age,  will 
be,  in  the  judgment  of  many,  a  pru- 
dent, if  rather  an  Irish  way  of  using 
by  keeping. 

Few  things  require  more  pains, 
show  more  character,  or  earn  more 
results,  than  the  expenditure  of  money 
for  household  necessities.  Several 
points  strike  one  here  as  indisputable, 
but  singular.  How  much  more  some 
people  spend  on  mere  eating  and  drink- 


On  Money  29 

ing  than  others.  How  this  is  true, 
not  only  of  navvies,  and  pitmen,  and 
artisans,  but  of  persons  of  all  ranks 
and  circumstances.  How  apt  such 
persons  are  to  complain  of  their 
poverty,  and  that  they  never  have 
money  for  anything  else.  How  easily 
such  luxuries  come  to  be  looked  upon 
as  the  indispensable  necessaries  of 
life.  How  the  simpler  and  more 
frugal  people,  who  would  equally  like 
them,  but  go  without  them,  because 
other  things  seem  to  come  first,  never 
get  credit  for  their  thriftiness  but  are 
assumed  not  to  mind  about  them. 
How  little  any  one  gets  for  his  money 
spent  this  way,  except  dyspepsia  and 
a  habit  of  self-indulgence.  How  quite 
the  worst  and  silliest  way  of  spend- 
ing money  is  to  eat  and  drink  it. 

But  our  household  expenditure 
means  other  possibilities  of  extrava- 
gance than  those  of  food.  Costly 
changes  in  furniture,  not  for  being 
worn  out,  but  for  being  old-fashioned  ; 


30  On  Money 

what  is  called  "stylish  living,"  so 
often  the  pretentious  vulgarity  of 
pseudo  gentle-people,  and  so  miserably 
and  deservedly  failing  in  procuring  the 
consideration  it  spends  so  much  to 
buy  ;  an  expensive  way  of  entertain- 
ing, which  gratifies  nobody  but  the 
tradesmen  who  supply  the  goods ; 
servants  simply  to  minister  to  lazi- 
ness :  and  incessant  going  to  and  fro 
to  this  place  or  that,  merely  because 
home  is  dull :  these  are  items  of  ex- 
pense which  swell  the  house-bills  of 
many  a  quiet  family,  with  little  in 
return  but  constant  mortification,  and 
the  pressure  of  debt. 

The  plain  truth  is,  and  there  is 
much  consolation  it  it,  that  the  actual 
necessaries  of  life  form  a  much  less 
item  in  household  expenditure  than 
many  of  us  are  willing  to  suppose  : 
that  it  is  the  extras,  and  the  luxuries, 
and  the  superfluities  that  run  away 
with  the  money ;  that  the  sooner  a 
somewhat  stern  and  decided  check  is 


On  Money  31 

put  on  modern  habits  of  spending, 
the  better  it  will  be  for  all  of  us ;  and 
that  if  the  recent  rise  in  prices  helps 
to  affect  a  little  household  economy, 
and  compels  some  of  us  to  ask  our- 
selves if  we  could  not  be  quite  as  well 
and  as  happy  with  cheaper  and  simpler 
ways,  the  country  would  be  wealthier 
through  its  increased  savings,  and  in 
many  homes  the  purse  at  the  end  of 
the  year  would  be  much  fuller  than 
now. 

In  quite  their  proper  place  clothes 
have  a  claim  for  consideration  among 
the  other  items  of  domestic  spending ; 
and  though  the  present  age  hardly 
needs  encouragement  in  this  direction, 
it  is  a  real  mistake  to  treat  them  as  a 
matter  of  indifference.  Whatever  is 
worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing  well ; 
and  it  is  by  no  means  an  open  question 
whether  clothes  are  to  be  worn.  The 
right  thing  to  do  is  to  spend  just  that 
amount  of  attention  and  money  on  them 
that  in  the  end  will  prove  the  true 


32  On  Money 

economy.  To  care  nothing  for  dress 
is,  indeed,  not  quite  such  a  snare  as  to 
care  too  much  for  it.  It  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  costliness  of  wardrobe 
is  one  of  the  glaring  inconsistencies  of 
our  modern  Christianity ;  and  makes 
shrewd  men  and  women  of  the  world 
coldly  and  scornfully  ask,  where  is  the 
cross  that  such  Christians  carry.  Yet 
when  God  gives  any  one  personal 
attractions,  He  entrusts  them  with  a 
means  of  influence  which  He  expects 
to  be  made  use  of ;  and  there  are  two 
kinds  of  vanity,  that  which  affects  to 
despise  natural  gifts,  and  that  which 
assumes  a  personal  pre-eminence  from 
them.  But  be  there  beauty  or  no,  it  is 
still  reasonable  and  natural  to  wish  to 
make  the  best  of  ourselves.  For  we 
should  dress,  not  only  for  our  own 
fancy,  but  to  please  those  we  live  with. 
A  true  wife  likes  to  please  her  husband's 
eye  ;  and  a  father  is  gratified  by  seeing 
his  daughters  dress  as  suits  him.  But 
clothes  cost  money ;  and  while  extremes 


On  Money  33 

on  both  sides  should  be  carefully 
avoided,  quite  the  most  wasteful  plan 
is  to  give  it  no  thought  at  all.  "  Can 
a  maid  forget  her  ornaments  ?  "  (Jere- 
miah ii.  32)  is  an  inspired  question, 
which  has  its  root  in  the  intrinsic 
reasonableness  of  some  kind  of  care 
being  given  to  them  ;  and  the  elevated 
temperament  that  treats  clothes  and 
their  cognate  subjects  with  a  lofty 
negligence  is  certain  to  be  extravagant, 
and  likely  to  be  shabby. 

The  right  spending  of  money  also 
includes  usefulness.  And  I  choose 
this  word  in  preference  to  charity,  be- 
cause it  contains  and  expresses  more. 
A  Christian's  hourly  conviction  about 
all  his  spending  should  be  that  he  is  a 
steward  for  God,  both  as  regards  him- 
self and  his  neighbour.  Among  the 
rough  tests  of  the  genuineness  of  our 
religion,  none  is  so  sure  as  our  habit  or 
giving  away. 

But  this  is  one  of  those  matters  in 
which  the  truest  wisdom  is  to  be  at 

c 


34  On  Money 

once  methodical  and  free.  A  conscien- 
tious man  should,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
set  aside  a  certain  part  of  his  income 
as  belonging  to  God,  and  sacredly  to 
be  dedicated  to  Him.  The  principle, 
however,  once  recognised,  the  special 
application  of  it  must  vary  according 
to  the  individual  case.  Are  there  many 
children  or  few  ?  Is  the  annual  income 
professional  and  fluctuating,  or  per- 
manent and  certain  ?  Here  are,  at 
least,  two  among  other  conditions  which 
will  materially  affect  the  power,  and  so 
the  duty  of  giving.  Such  proportion 
inflexibly  set  aside  for  the  Master's  use 
need  not  necessarily  be  all  that  is  given. 
Sometimes  it  may  be  more,  though  it 
never  should  be  less.  If  it  fall  short 
in  one  year  it  should  ,be  made  up  in 
another.  Any  sudden  accession  of 
fortune,  or  great  hit  in  worldly  success, 
should  be  recognised  by  a  special  thank- 
offering  ;  gratefully,  for  it  is  He  who 
gives  us  power  to  get  wealth  ;  promptly, 
for  the  sooner  it  is  done  the  more  likely 


On  Money  35 

it  is  to  be  well  done.  A  gift  deferred 
often  means  a  gift  diminished.  That 
it  is  set  apart  for  divine  uses  does  not 
necessarily  imply  that  it  should  all  be 
devoted  to  strictly  religious  purposes. 

There  are  many  doors  into  the 
Temple  of  Charity,  and  various  are  the 
altars  on  which  our  offering  may  be 
laid.  Occasionally  it  is  found  a  good 
rule  to  apportion  the  charity  purse 
under  the  four  divisions  of  religious, 
benevolent,  domestic,  and  casual — part 
going  regularly  in  annual  subscriptions, 
part  to  collections  in  church,  part  to 
special  objects  such  as  occur  annually 
with  almost  inconvenient  regularity, 
part  not  assigned  at  all,  but  left  free 
for  the  discretion  of  the  hour.  Only 
let  us  take  care  that  our  charity  be  not 
so  mechanical  as  to  lose  all  its  true 
vitality,  so  much  a  matter  of  habit,  that 
we  forget,  when  we  give,  humbly  to 
offer  it  to  our  God.  It  is  the  motive 
that  makes  the  gift  precious — in  the 
grateful  love  that  lays  it  at  the  Lcrd  ? 


36  On  Money 

feet  once  pierced  to  save  us,  in  the 
wondering  joy  that  thrills  through  the 
heart,  that  God  should  accept  anything 
from  our  hands.  Then,  when  God  is 
remembered,  and  His  poor  cared  for, 
and  His  kingdom  promoted,  and  our 
own  flesh  and  blood  not  coldly  pushed 
aside,  are  we  free,  as  conscience  shall 
permit  us  and  our  means  justify  it, 
occasionally  to  think  of  our  own  wishes 
and  gratify  our  own  tastes.  "  Rather 
give  alms  of  such  things  as  ye  have, 
and  behold  all  things  are  clean  unto 
you  "  (Luke  xi.  41).  When  people  ask 
if  it  can  be  consistent  with  simplicity 
and  self-denial  to  buy  a  picture,  or  to 
own  a  carriage,  or  to  take  a  tour,  when 
all  these  things  spend  money  that  might 
be  directly  used  for  the  glory  of  our 
Master,  let  us  not  fear  to  say,  it  t's,  if 
nothing  else  comes  so  near  us  as  to 
make  the  indulgence  unlawful.  For 
two  reasons.  First,  because  one  end 
of  money  is  enjoyment ;  and  God  gives 
it  us,  among  other  purposes,  to  minister 


On  Money  37 

to  this  enjoyment ;  and  He  rejoices 
over  our  joy  in  His  gifts,  as  a  tender 
human  parent  is  glad  in  his  child's 
gladness  at  some  present  of  his  own. 
Oh,  we  do  our  heavenly  Father  wrong, 
if  we  suppose  that  No  is  the  word  He 
likes  best  to  say  to  us.  His  is  no 
austere  nature  that  can  neither  smile 
nor  bless  ;  and  if  out  of  our  superfluity 
we  would  sometimes  buy  something 
that  to  possess  would  please  us,  let  us 
ask  His  leave  and  be  free. 

Another  reason  is,  that  society,  in  all 
the  immense  varieties  of  its  complex 
life,  exists  and  grows  by  the  mutual 
interdependence  of  its  members ;  that 
He  who  has  implanted  in  us  the  love 
of  art,  or  of  music,  or  of  books,  or  of 
nature,  or  of  4ravel,  must  intend  and 
sanction  the  moderate  indulgence  of 
them ;  that  the  Christian,  so  far  from 
needing  to  feel  himself  debarred  these 
innocent  recreations,  should  feel  him- 
self as  free  as  other  men  for  them ;  for 
is  it  not  a  Father's  world  in  which  we 


38  On  Money 

find  ourselves,  and  are  not  these  merci- 
fully given  us  for  happiness  ?  He 
who  has  wreathed  the  face  with  smiles, 
and  endowed  us  with  the  blessed 
sense  of  humour,  and  given  flowers 
their  odours,  and  made  the  outer 
world  so  exceeding  glorious,  has 
taught  us,  as  in  a  parable,  that  our 
joy  is  His  joy,  only  let  it  always  be 
in  Him. 

There  are,  however,  two  things  more 
to  say.  It  may  be  that  at  the  moment 
when  we  are  meditating  such  indul- 
gence, some  pressing  necessity,  or  out- 
side sorrow,  comes  in,  and  a  voice  says 
to  us,  "  Canst  thou  cheerfully  deny 
thyself,  and  spare  that  money  lor  me  ?  " 
At  such  a  moment — and  it  will  not 
always,  perhaps  not  often,  come,  God 
is  too  kind,  too  just  to  overtask  us — 
let  us  lift  up  our  heart  for  strength,  and 
then,  looking  once  more  at  our  coveted 
treasure,  for  our  Saviour's  sake,  bravely 
let  it  go.  The  quiet  happiness  that 
distils  into  the  heart,  when  He  smiles 


On  Money  39 

on  us  His  thanks,  must  be  felt  to  be 
known. 

Or,  there  may  be  those  in  whose 
heart,  through  the  special  and  exceed- 
ing grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  there  is 
now  an  utter  deadness  and  indifference 
to  such  things,  not  because  there  never 
was  any  natural  inclination  for  them, 
but  because  the  power  of  the  new  life 
has  smothered  it  out.  The  extent  of 
their  indifference  is  the  measure  of 
their  victory.  Well,  blessed  are  they 
in  their  utter  contentment  with  their 
Lord,  and  in  their  joy  in  sacrifice. 
They  are  on  a  height,  which  no  one 
can  reach  without  much  steep  climbing, 
and  some  falls. 

Lord  Bacon,  in  his  Essay  on  Ex- 
pense, clearly  points  out  that  "  he  that 
is  plentiful  in  expense  of  all  kinds,  will 
hardly  be  preserved  from  decay." 
While  one  hobby  judiciously  and 
moderately  indulged,  can  hardly  hurt 
a  poor  man,  half  a  dozen  may  make  a 
bankrupt  of  a  rich  one.  That  idiosyn- 


40  On  Money 

crasies  of  expense  have,  on  the  whole, 
been  beneficial  to  society  needs  no 
arguing;  since  but  for  the  costly  en- 
thusiasm of  private,  and  sometimes 
eccentric  collectors,  there  would  be 
none  of  those  accumulations  of  art  and 
books  and  sculpture  that  give  all  classes 
a  share  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
wealthier  neighbours,  and  sow  broad- 
cast the  fruitful  seed  of  many  a  lofty 
thought  and  noble  production.  This, 
too,  is  certain,  that  pictures,  plate, 
marquettry,  china,  or  vertu  of  any 
kind,  when  really  good  of  its  sort,  is  a 
valuable  investment  if  you  can  wait  for 
your  interest ;  to  buy  well,  even  if  you 
pay  highly,  is  a  safe  protection  against 
ultimate  loss.  No  doubt  the  difficulty, 
however,  thnt  most  men  find  in  this 
direction  is  knowing  where  to  stop,  for 
everyone  can  appreciate  Dr.  Johnson's 
experience,  that  abstinence  is  easier 
than  temperance.  Conscience  has  a 
voice  that  claims  to  be  heard  about 
every  penny  spent  on  self-indulgence  ; 


On  Money  41 

and  when  sternly  silenced,  it  waits  for 
its  revenge. 

There  are,  however,  two  useful 
checks  on  our  habits  of  expenditure, 
which,  if  not  strictly  to  be  called  moral, 
yet  tend  that  way,  since  they  act  as 
helps  to  the  conscience,  though  not  to 
be  recognised  as  quite  on  a  level  with 
it.  One  of  them  is  the  habit  of  saving? 
the  other  the  practice  of  keeping 
accounts.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  about  saving  that  it  is  a  primary 
instinct  of  human  nature,  and  that  in 
proportion  to  the  savings  of  a  nation 
will  be  the  increase  of  its  wealth  and 
independence  and  power.  Englishmen 
are,  with  one  exception,  probably  quite 
the  least  thrifty  of  civilised  nations, 
and  if  some  of  us  need  convincing 
that  it  is  important  to  save,  still  more 
refuse  to  admit  that  it  is  possible. 
Many  persons,  indeed,  appear  to  regard 
thriftiness  as  identical  with  a  certain 
meanness  of  disposition,  and  think  that 
no  One  can  save  but  at  the  cost  of  his 


42  On  Money 

own  dignity  and  his  neighbour's  inte- 
rests, -and  the  easy  indulgence  so  gene- 
rally granted  to  the  selfish  thought- 
fulness  of  young  spendthrifts  indicates 
a  fallacy  latent  in  the  popular  mind, 
that  any  kind  of  waste  is,  on  the  whole, 
for  the  public  good.  Now,  is  it  quite 
too  bold  to  hazard  two  statements  on 
•this  subject :  one,  that  most  people 
ought  to  save ;  another,  that  a  large 
minority  can  ?  That  most  people  ought 
to  save  is  capable  of  proof,  from  the 
standpoint  both  of  self-interest  and 
religion.  That  every  one  can  save — 
obvious  exceptions  allowed  for — is 
plain  from  the  fact  that  all  of  us  waste 
a  certain  amount  every  year  on  some 
sort  of  superfluity,  which,  though  spent 
gradually  and  almost  unconsciously, 
and  mostly  in  small  sums,  makes  a 
considerable  total  at  the  end  of  the 
twelve  months,  and  which,  if  not  spent, 
would  have  been  still  at  our  disposal. 

The  prudence  of  saving  may  almost 
be  called   self-evident.     Illness,    hiis- 


On  Money  43 

fortune,  the  opportunity  of  an  eligible 
purchase,  putting  out  children  into  the 
world,  the  inevitable  growth  of  expen- 
diture as  we  advance  in  life,  the 
immense  comfort  of  a  secret  provision 
for  emergencies,  are  quite  sufficient  in 
themselves  to  justify  and  reward  the 
thrift  that  springs  from  self-denial, 
apart  from  the  distinct  motive  of  laying 
by  for  accumulation,  which  it  may  or 
may  not  be  right  to  do.  Though  it 
may  not  tell  directly  upon  our  habits 
of  benevolence,  and  in  many  cases  it 
will  not ;  in  quite  as  many  more  it  will 
tell  indirectly,  through  promoting  self- 
restraint,  and  placing  additional  means 
at  our  disposal.  For  if  we  are  poor, 
through  what  we  miss  as  well  as 
through  what  we  lose,  we  are  rich 
through  what  we  save  as  much  as 
through  what  we  gain.  By  all  means 
let  us  admit  that  the  habit  of  saving 
has  a  dangerous  side  to  it ;  that  to 
save  merely  to  keep  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  saving  that  we  may  give 


44  On  Money 

away ;  and  that  where  pride,  or 
stinginess,  or  covetousness,  is  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  it  is  but  selfishness  in 
perhaps  a  more  specious  form.  Never- 
theless, much  inconvenience  would  be 
saved,and  even  greater  distress  avoided, 
if  it  was  felt  to  be  a  rule  of  common 
prudence  to  lay  by  something  yearly, 
whether  much  or  little,  against  an  evil 
day.  No  one  can  be  rich  who  lives 
beyond  his  income,  and  no  one  can  be 
poor  who  lives  within  it. 

The  habit  of  keeping  accounts  to 
some  people  seems  the  only  possible 
way  of  saving  themselves  from  waste 
and  debt,  while  others  scoff  at  it  as  a 
piece  of  useless  pedantry.  And  it  is 
quite  true  that  if  the  money  is  spent, 
writing  down  in  a  book  how  it  is 
spent  will  not  get  it  back  again.  It 
is  also  true  that  for  private  individuals, 
at  the  end  of  every  year,  at  the  risk  of 
their  own  temper  and  the  comfort  of 
their  family,  and  the  loss  of  much 
precious  time,  to  insist  on  balancing 


On  Money  45 

their  accounts  to  a  halfpenny,  is  a  kind 
of  financial  pedantry  which  (all  respect 
to  Charles  Simeon  notwithstanding) 
good  sense  will  usually  repudiate  as 
utterly  needless.  But  admitting  all 
this,  there  is  still  real  advantage  in 
the  regular  keeping  of  accounts  which 
is  quite  worth  a  certain  amount  of  con- 
stant trouble,  and  which,  if  not  pushed 
to  an  extreme,  is  a  valuable  help  to 
conscientious  persons.  Writing  down 
the  cost  of  something  which,  perhaps, 
you  did  not  really  want,  or  ought  not 
to  have  paid  such  a  high  price  for,  may 
give  you  a  useful  qualm  of  conscience 
on  being  brought  face  to  face  with  it, 
and  may  prevent  your  repeating  the 
error.  Those  who  are  methodical 
enough  to  apportion  definite  amounts 
to  the  various  items  of  their  expendi- 
ture, and  who  would  be  honestly  dis- 
tressed if  the  allotment,  say  to  personal 
expenditure,  was  seriously  augmented 
to  the  injury  of  other  claims,  have  an 
easy  way  of  ascertaining  from  their 


46  On  Money 

private  record  how  far  they  are  fulfil- 
ling their  own  intentions.  Any  one 
who  honestly  feels  that  giving  away 
a  certain  proportion  of  his  income  is 
a  distinct  and  pressing  duty  will  from 
time  to  time  be  careful  to  ascertain 
how  far  he  is  really  giving  in  charity 
a  due  proportion,  as  God  prospers  him. 
But  there  is  no  readier  way  than  that 
of  glancing  over  his  account-book,  and 
finding  there  in  the  black  and  white  of 
his  own  handwriting  how  much  he 
has  received  and  how  much  he  has 
given. 

It  belongs  to  this  part  of  our  subject 
to  observe  how  directly,  and  univer- 
sally, and  continually,  and  on  the 
whole  reasonably,  social  opinion  claims 
to  pronounce  its  verdict  on  the  right 
use  a  man  makes  of  his  money.  The 
question,  "  What  is  he  worth  ?  "  may 
often  be  asked  with  a  purely  worldly 
meaning,  and  the  answer  given  will 
usually  be,  not  that  he  is  just,  or  pure, 
or  true,  or  kindly,  or  highly  educated, 


On  Money  47 

but  that  his  income  is  so  much  a  year. 
There  is  also  seen  in  some  people  an 
impertinent  curiosity  about  their  neigh- 
bours' private  affairs  that  cannot  too 
instantly  or  too  sharply  be  snubbed. 
Worldly-wise  men  will  always  show  a 
cautious  reticence  on  this  subject,  and 
some  one  in  "  Coningsby  "  is  made  to 
say  that  the  pleasant  thing  is  to  have 
ten  thousand  a  year,  and  to  be  supposed 
to  have  only  five.  While,  however,  no 
wise  man  will  ever  wish  to  be  thought 
richer  than  he  is,  an  honest  man  will 
hardly  try  to  make  it  out  that  he  is 
poorer.  Admitting  what  has  been 
already  observed  about  unjustifiable 
intrusion  into  other  men's  affairs, 
there  is  still  a  kind  of  rough  though 
sometimes  inconvenient  reasonableness 
in  the  anxiety  of  a  man's  neighbours 
to  discover  what  share  he  may  fairly 
be  invited  to  take  in  the  duties  and 
burdens  of  his  neighbourhood.  While 
there  is  only  too  much  disposition 
among  some  Englishmen  to  b2  ob- 


48  On  Money 

sequious  to  rich  men,  and  to  give  a  dis- 
proportionate influence  to  the  possessor 
of  wealth,  it  is  on  all  accounts  desirable 
to  rouse  in  every  one  a  real  conviction 
of  the  responsibility  of  possessing  it. 
Never  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the 
daily  tribunal  of  public  opinion,  before 
which  every  one  of  us,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  willingly  or  unwillingly, 
is  compelled  to  stand,  is  but  the  faint 
type  and  precursor  of  that  final  judg- 
ment-seat before  which  the  rich  and 
poor  will  some  day  meet  together,  and 
from  which  One  who  has  Himself  been 
poor  will  judge  His  brethren  without 
respect  of  persons. 

It  is  probably  the  presentiment  of 
this  tribunal  that  induces  many  worldly 
persons  at  the  last  moment  to  attempt 
to  atone  at  their  death  for  the  short- 
comings of  their  life  by  giving  their 
money  away  when  they  can  no  longer 
keep  it  for  their  own  purposes,  and, 
perhaps  to  the  injury  of  their  own  flesh 
and  blood,  to  leave  the  world  with  a 


On  Money  49 

flourish  of  trumpets  in  the  shape  of 
ostentatious  legacies  to  charitable  in- 
stitutions, for  which,  when  living,  they 
neither  thought  nor  cared.  Such  gifts 
can  neither  bribe  God  nor  deceive  men. 
When,  however,  they  fitly  conclude  a 
life  of  consistent  benevolence,  they  are 
the  becoming  farewell  of  a  Christian's 
heart  to  the  world  he  is  leaving,  whose 
woes  he  can  no  longer  heal.  And  this 
brings  us  to  a  part  of  our  subject 
which  it  is  impossible  to  pass  over 
without  some  consideration — the  right 
disposition  of  money  after  we  are  dead 
by  what  is  called  a  will. 

Superstition  with  some  persons,  in- 
dolence with  others,  indecision  or 
changeableness  with  others,  will  often 
cause  men  to  postpone  to  an  incon- 
venient or  hurried  moment  what,  for 
the  sake  of  others  as  well  as  them- 
selves, should  be  done  when  the  health 
is  strong,  the  judgment  clear,  the 
leisure  sufficient,  and  the  will  un- 
biassed. It  is  quite  true  that  in  some 

D 


5o  On  Money 

cases  the  law  makes  a  man's  will  for 
him,  even  better  than  he  could  make  it 
for  himself;  and  that,  unless  he  is 
able  to  keep  his  own  counsel  about  it, 
the  risk  of  disappointing  those  whose 
expectations  he  has  excited  may 
seriously  affect  his  freedom  of  action 
if  he  wishes  to  change  his  mind.  It  is 
equally  true  that  the  absence  of  a  will 
is  often  productive  not  only  of  great 
inconvenience  but  also  of  wretched 
discord ;  and  at  a  moment  when  a  pro- 
found sorrow  might  be  expected  to 
bind  together  brothers  and  sisters  by 
the  sad  tie  of  a  common  sympathy, 
they  leave  their  father's  grave  to 
plunge  into  a  miserable  strife  for  the 
wealth  he  has  left  behind.  It  is  a 
serious  question  how  far,  in  making 
their  wills,  people  are  sufficiently 
aware  of  the  life-long  resentments  that 
so  often  follow  them ;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  the  grateful  kindliness  which 
the  tender  mention  of  a  name,  or  the 
bequeathing  of  some  trifling  legacy, 


On  Money  51 

can  stir  in  the  heart  that  rejoices  to 
feel  itself  loved.  Injustice  in  a  will 
rankles  and  cankers  in  the  wounded 
memory  for  a  whole  lifetime.  To  be 
cut  off  with  a  shilling  is  a  kind  of 
malignant  insult,  now  happily  falling 
into  general  disuse ;  and,  as  a  rule,  the 
shorter  wills  are,  the  fewer  complica- 
tions they  involve  afterwards ;  but  to 
be  totally  passed  over  in  the  will  of 
one  quite  near  to  you,  without  your 
name  being  mentioned,  is  sometimes 
quite  as  vexatious  to  a  sensitive  heart. 
Our  last  thoughts  of  those  we  love 
should  be  tender  thoughts ;  and  it 
helps  us  to  remember  them,  to  know 
that  they  remembered  us. 

Among  the  practical  lessons  which 
a  careful  parent  will  constantly  incul- 
cate upon  his  children,  and  the  pithy 
maxims  that  will  be  falling  from  his 
lips,  almost  without  his  knowing  them, 
none  can  be  more  important  in  their 
nature,  more  incessant  in  their  influ- 
ence, or  more  permanent  in  their  re- 


52  On  Money 

suit,  than  those  which  bear  upon 
money.  It  is  easy  to  make  too  much 
of  it,  and  it  is  possible  to  make  too 
little. 

Where  the  one  aim  of  the  head  of  a 
family  is  plainly  seen  to  be  to  become 
rich ;  and  when  the  constant  burden  of 
his  talk  is  on  the  power  and  importance 
of  money ;  his  children  will  inevitably 
be  trained  for  their  father's  Mammon- 
worship,  and  the  air  of  filthy  lucre 
they  daily  breathe  will  insensibly  im- 
pregnate their  moral  character.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  see  money  treated 
as  a  matter  of  utter  indifference;  if 
before  their  eyes  day  by  day  expenses 
are  incurred  without  means  to  meet 
them,  and  the  last  question  ever  asked 
about  anything  is  what  it  will  cost, 
there  will  be  a  tendency  in  the  other 
direction  to  impair  the  quickness  of 
the  moral  sense  in  money  matters 
generally,  habitual  self-indulgence  will 
seem  to  be  the  natural  order  of  things, 
and  to  wish  for  anything,  will  mean 


On  Money  53 

instantly  to  try  to  procure  it.  No 
doubt  in  many  persons  there  are  what 
may  be  called  hereditary  ideas  about 
money :  some  are  born  frugal,  others 
extravagant ;  and  be  the  circumstances 
of  life  what  they  may,  the  original  bias 
will  assert  itself  from  the  nursery  to 
the  grave.  But  a  great  deal  may  be 
done  by  carefully  educating  children 
in  the  true  value  of  money  as  means 
to  an  end.  There  are  various  ways  of 
doing  it,  and  some  of  them  will  at  first 
be  disappointing.  Different  characters 
must  be  differently  treated,  and  an  age, 
which  might  be  suitable  for  one  young 
person  to  be  trusted  with  money, 
might  be  very  unsuitable  for  another. 
You  begin  to  give  your  boy  an  allow- 
ance, with  much  good  advice  on  the 
right  way  of  spending  it ;  and  you  are 
mortified,  when  he  returns  for  his  first 
vacation  to  find  that  you  have  to  pay 
your  money  twice  over.  His  allow- 
ance is  all  spent — he  really  does  not 
know  how — and  the  bills,  which  it 


54  On  Money 

ought  to  have  paid,  are  sent  home  to 
you.  Well,  give  him  a  sharp  scold- 
ing ;  be  sure  not  to  let  him  think  you 
feel  him  capable  of  having  wilfully  de- 
ceived you;  cheerfully  trust  him  again, 
and  the  chances  are  it  is  the  last  time 
it  will  happen.  If  it  is  good  for  lads 
to  be  gradually  trained  to  the  use  of 
money,  it  is  quite  as  important  for 
girls.  Not  only  is  it  an  additional  in- 
terest in  their  life ;  but  it  prepares 
them  for  the  time  when  they  will  have 
to  keep  house  for  a  husband  or  a 
brother;  and  it  is  a  constant  oppor- 
tunity of  secret  self-denial  to  devout 
hearts,  that  love  to  spare  what  they 
can  for  God. 

The  chief  thing,  however,  that  wise 
parents  should  din  into  their  children's 
memory,  and  impress  on  their  con- 
sciences almost  from  the  first  hour 
they  are  capable  of  understanding  it, 
is  the  misery,  and  bondage,  and  even 
disgrace  that  come  with  debt.  Borrow- 
ing seems  so  easy,  and  lending  so 


On  Money  55 

natural,  and  youth  is  buoyant  with 
hope,  and  conscious  of  integrity.  "  It 
is  only  for  a  short  time,  and  payment 
will  easily  be  made;  and  who  need 
know  ?  "  But  a  tendency  of  this  kind 
should  be  burned  out  of  a  young  man's 
nature  as  with  a  hot  iron.  It  is  a  fault 
towards  which  an  inflexible  sternness 
is  at  once  the  kindest,  and  the  only 
effective  remedy.  An  indulgent  easi- 
ness in  the  early  days  of  youth  may 
foster  a  habit  which  will  paralyse  the 
sinews  of  robust  action,  and  reduce 
ultimately  its  victim  to  the  contemp- 
tible condition  of  being  either  a  men- 
dicant or  a  thief.  If  the  earliest  com- 
mission of  a  fault  of  this  kind  is 
severely  punished',  at  the  moment,  the 
first  fault  may  be  the  last ;  while  one 
condoned  offence  may  be,  not  only  to 
the  offender,  but  to  all  the  rest  of  the 
family,  a  false  symptom  of  parental 
weakness,  that  may  result  in  a  harvest 
of  sorrow.  It  is  true  that  if  no  one 
would  lend,  no  one  could  borrow. 


56  On  Money 

But  not  all  lending  is  to  pay  debts, 
and  not  all  borrowing  is  to  discharge 
them.  As  a  rule,  it  is  sometimes  much 
better,  where  there  is  a  claim  of  blood 
or  friendship  on  you,  to  give  half  rather 
than  lend  all.  Where  there  is  delicacy 
of  feeling  the  request  is  not  likely  to 
be  repeated  from  the  same  quarter,  and 
often  you  are  as  happy  to  aid,  as  your 
friend  to  be  aided.  There  will  often 
also  be  cases  where,  from  the  convic- 
tion that  the  granting  of  a  loan 
would  be  mischievous  or  useless,  for 
very  friendship's  sake,  painful  though 
it  be,  it  is  our  duty  firmly  to  say 
No. 

But  lending  as  a  rule  from  friend  to 
friend  or  relative  to  relative  is  some- 
times a  very  hazardous  proceeding  on 
one  side,  if  not  on  both  ;  for  the  time 
of  repaying  is  never  quite  convenient, 
and  a  borrower's  memory  is  often 
treacherous.  It  is  a  cynic's  remark, 
founded  on  painful  experience  of  aver- 
age human  nature,  that  to  get  rid  of  a 


On  Money  57 

man  you  don't  want,  the  shortest  way 
is  to  lend  him  money. 

A  dry  and  somewhat  dull  subject  is 
now  drawing  t  D  its  close  ;  and  it  is  not 
easy  to  light  it  up  either  with  the  gleams 
of  fancy  or  the  touches  of  feeling  that 
float  other  topics  on  a  reader's  sympa- 
thies. There  are  still,  however,  two 
points  of  view,  in  which  it  may  be 
usefully  considered  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  have  but  little  of  it,  and  for 
the  study  of  all  who  have  yet  to  be 
convinced  that,  be  it  much  or  little,  it 
never  leaves  us  as  it  finds  us  ;  it  makes 
us  worse  or  better. 

One  of  the  wisest  and  kindest  of  our 
living  authors  has  said,  "  How  happy 
life  can  be  with  plenty  of  employment 
and  very  little  money ; "  and  his  words 
will  perhaps  more  easily  find  acceptance 
with  those  who  have  made  their  money, 
than  those  who  have  it  yet  to  make. 
It  will,  however,  seem  less  of  a  paradox, 
if  we  limit  its  application  mainly  to  that 
period  of  life  when  the  character  is  full 


58  On  Money 

of  energy,  the  body  active  with  vital 
power,  and  when  the  exquisite  and 
unsated  instincts  of  enjoyment  find  an 
ever-varied  scope  in  pursuits  and  en- 
gagements to  which  advanced  life  is 
unequal.  But,  paradox  or  not,  it  is 
true.  In  the  increase  of  wealth  there 
is  ever  an  increase  of  worry.  Your 
money  must  be  invested,  and  you 
cannot  easily  decide  as  to  the  right  way 
of  doing  the  best  with  it.  Or  you  make 
costly  purchases,  which  often  want 
more  looking  after  than  you  ever 
bargained  for.  The  more  you  buy  the 
more  the  margin  of  your  cares  is  in- 
creased, the  more  numerous  are  the 
hostages  that  you  give  to  fortune.  You 
can't  lose  what  you  don't  possess. 
Burglars  will  not  steal  your  simple 
plate,  which  they  never  suspect  to  be 
silver;  no  one  cheats  you  with  the 
horses  you  do  not  wish  to  buy ;  you 
are  saved  perhaps  a  week's  vexation 
by  never  being  outbidden  for  a  picture 
which  you  had  resolved  on  securing; 


On  Money  59 

the  storm  that  sweeps  down  the  lofty 
forest  trees  spares  the  humble  shrubs 
that  clasp  the  hill. 

To  have  just  enough,  and  to  know 
that  it  is  enough,  and  to  be  thankful  for 
it — this  is  the  secret  which  the  Gospel 
long  ago  proclaimed  to  mankind,  but 
which  the  wisdom  of  this  world  rejects 
with  scorn.  Yet  to  suppose  that  a 
modest  competence,  such  as  modern 
times  would  call  utter  poverty,  has  no 
real  charms  or  vivid  enjoyments  of  its 
own,  is  a  profound  mistake.  It  is  full 
of  joy,  though  of  the  simplest  and 
purest  kind.  Let  some  of  us  middle- 
aged  people  who,  after  twenty  or  thirty 
years'  hard  work,  have  a  little  more  to 
live  upon  than  when  we  first  started 
(though,  indeed,  we  have  very  much 
more  to  do  with  it),  look  back  to  the 
days  long  ago,  when,  in  a  tiny  house, 
and  with  simple  furniture,  and  the 
whole  world  in  front  of  us,  domestic 
love  sweetened  every  care  of  life.  Are 
we  so  much  happier  now,  when  every 


60  On  Money 

half-crown  does  not  want  such  sharp 
looking  after,  than  when  we  had 
seriously  to  consider  if  we  could  afford 
a  week's  holiday,  or  invite  the  visit  of 
a  friend  ?  How  rich,  too,  we  thought 
ourselves  then  if  we  had  once  in  three 
months  a  five-pound  note  to  spare  and 
spend  !  How  we  talked  over  this  way 
and  that  of  doing  the  best  with  it,  and 
at  last  picked  up  something  to  make 
the  little  drawing-room  brighter,  or 
perhaps  bought  some  second-hand 
books  for  the  study  shelves.  The 
enjoyment  was  so  keen  because  the 
pleasure  was  so  rare. 

This  is  also  just  as  true  in  the  ques- 
tion of  holidays.  Many  gentle  people 
prefer  to  travel  third-class  without 
being  in  the  least  ashamed  of  it ;  and 
if  they  are  a  little  more  tired  at  the  end 
of  the  day,  they  have  the  money  in 
their  pockets  which  the  difference  in 
the  fare  has  saved.  A  country  farm- 
house where  you  have  to  keep  your 
jar  of  live-bait  in  the  same  room  where 


On  Money  61 

you  eat  your  meals,  and  where  you 
share  your  simple  shelter  with  the  dogs 
of  the  house,  if  not  with  inquisitive 
chickens,  will  cost  less,  but  be  every 
whit  as  enjoyable  as  the  well -furnished 
villa,  with  its  walled  garden  and  green- 
house, but  where,  at  the  end  of  your 
stay,  you  have  to  pay  for  every  dent 
in  the  wall  and  scratch  on  the  paper, 
the  air  no  fresher,  the  country  no 
lovelier,  but  the  rent  greater,  and  the 
life  so  much  less  of  a  real  change. 

Besides,  a  certain  scantiness  of 
purse  makes  the  wits  strangely  nimble 
in  ways  of  laying  out  money  to  the 
best  advantage.  You  take  trouble, 
you  make  inquiries,  you  hunt,  and  com- 
pare, and  calculate ;  and  when  you 
have  found  what  you  wanted,  it  seems 
doubly  earned.  Majestically  to  walk 
into  a  shop,  easily  to  select  the  first 
thing  that  suits  you,  always  to  have 
money  enough  to  pay  for  it,  never  to 
be  compelled  to  choose  what  is  worse 
because  it  is  cheaper,  no  doubt  has  its 


62  On  Money 

advantages ;  and  who  would  under- 
value them  ?  But  there  are  real  com- 
pensations for  the  multitude,  who  have 
to  make  an  appetite  for  their  food  by 
first  earning  it ;  and  among  the  simple 
and  innocent  enjoyments  of  quiet 
people,  none,  perhaps,  has  more  zest 
in  it,  or  reward  after  it,  than  a  long 
day's  search  for  some  special  object, 
which  they  cannot  give  more  than  a 
certain  sum  for,  and  which  they  know 
is  to  be  had  if  they  are  not  afraid  of 
trouble. 

Besides,  there  is  not  only  much 
happiness  to  be  enjoyed  consistently 
with  the  circumstances  of  what  is  now 
called  poverty,  there  is  also  much 
happiness  to  be  given.  The  secret  of 
being  well  off  is  to  know  how  to  do 
without  things.  The  secret  of  helping 
others  to  be  well  off  is  not  the  mono- 
poly of  those  who  can  give  great 
presents  or  confer  big  favours  ;  it  is 
also  with  those  who  can  make  trifles 
go  a  long  way  on  the  errands  of  kind- 


On  Money  63 

ness,  and  who  can  brighten  their  gifts 
with  love,  if  they  cannot  gild  them 
with  splendour. 

This  age  is  dear  for  some  things, 
but  it  is  cheap  for  others.  All  round, 
probably,  it  takes  much  more  to  keep 
a  family  even  in  the  simplest  fashion 
than  a  generation  ago.  But  life  is 
much  less  dull,  and  shut  up,  and  com- 
monplace, and  uninteresting,  than  it 
used  to  be  when  there  were  no  rail- 
ways, no  cheap  press,  no  penny  post- 
age, no  lawn-tennis,  no  Mudie's  library. 
There  is  more  refinement  in  some 
homes,  if  there  is  more  luxury  in 
others ;  and  if  meat  and  rent  cost 
more,  clothes  and  journeys  cost  less. 
But  all  this  bears  on  the  possibility  of 
making  others  happy,  limited  as  our 
means  may  be ;  in  the  occasions  of 
simple  hospitality,  in  the  lending  of 
books  and  writing  of  letters,  and  inter- 
change of  trifling  and  pleasant  gifts. 
No  doubt  it  is  delightful  to  receive  a 
fifty-pound  note  from  a  kind  grand- 


64  On  Money 

mother,  and  to  be  told  you  are  to  do 
with  it  just  what  you  please;  but 
sometimes  that  which  costs  only  five 
shillings  gives  just  as  much  pleasure ; 
and  a  heart  that  loves  to  see  a  child 
smile  may  buy  as  many  smiles  as  it 
wants  for  sixpence  apiece. 

Money  also  tests  character,  in  the 
way  it  indicates  and  develops  the  moral 
disposition,  whether  for  evil  or  good. 
Almost  the  first  advice  that  a  kindly 
man  of  the  world  would  give  to  a 
youth  just  entering  upon  it  would  be, 
"Never  treat  money  affairs  with  levity." 
It  has  been  said  of  horses  that  they 
are  noble  creatures  in  themselves, 
but  that  somehow  they  contrive  to 
demoralise  all  who  have  much  to  do 
with  them.  It  may  with  equal  truth 
be  said  of  money,  that  in  itself  it  is  a 
necessary  and  useful  thing ;  but  unless 
we  handle  it  carefully  it  will  burn 
our  fingers.  A  professional  man,  who 
permits  any  one  but  himself  to  open 
his  letters,  had  better  keep  his  counsel 


On  Money  65 

about  it,  for  cautious  clients  may  not  be 
pleased  ;  and  when  a  person  entrusted 
with  other  people's  money  permits  any 
hand  but  his  own  to  sign  cheques,  he 
runs  a  risk  which  it  may  be  hard  to 
justify. 

Then  every  one  has  some  weak 
point  about  money,  and  almost  every 
one  is  extravagant  in  some  things  and 
penurious  in  others.  A  noble  nature 
is  noble  with  money.  It  is  just  what 
one  would  have  expected  of  gallant 
King  Amadeus,  that  he  should  insist 
on  restoring  the  Escurial  out  of  his 
own  purse.  Small-natured  people  are 
small  with  their  money,  and  to  get 
sixpence  out  of  them  is  like  drawing 
a  double  tooth.  Wasteful  people  are 
often  stingy;  for  this  is  their  only 
way  of  recouping  themselves  for  their 
improvidence. 

But  stingy  people  are  often  wasteful, 
just  because  they  are  stingy.  A  stitch 
in  time  saves  nine.  Timidity  often 
defeats  its  own  purpose.  Rome  in  the 

E 


66  On  Money 

end  had  to  pay  as  much  for  the  three 
remaining  books  of  the  Sibyl  as  would 
have  bought  the  six  others ;  and  a  little 
courage  in  buying  is  sometimes  the 
truest  economy. 

It  is  an  inspired  maxim,  "  that  he 
that  hateth  suretiship  is  sure "  (Pro- 
verbs xi.  15).  But  it  does  not  need 
inspiration  to  see  that  no  one  should 
consent  to  be  a  trustee  for  others  who 
is  not  prepared  to  take  a  good  deal  of 
trouble,  or  who  is  not  qualified  by  the 
proper  experience  for  fairly  doing  his 
best.  Money  committed  to  us  for  a 
particular  purpose  should,  in  the 
absence  of  discretionary  power,  be 
strictly  spent  on  it,  or  fresh  instruc- 
tions procured.  With  certain  persons 
it  is  a  necessary  precaution,  not  only 
to  indicate  the  way  in  which  your 
money  is  to  be  expended,  but  to  take 
care  that  it  gets  there.  Some  people 
have  a  deep  crack  running  from  head 
to  foot  through  their  moral  nature. 
If  you  send  them  money  for  a  child's 


On  Money  67 

schooling,  it  is  spent  on  a  silk  gown  ; 
or  the  cheque  that  you  intended  to  fill 
their  coal-cellar  is  as  likely  as  not  to 
go  for  a  trinket.  Where  some  people 
make  their  money  go  much  farther 
than  others  do,  it  is  not  necessarily 
because  they  are  so  much  more  clever, 
but  because  they  give  their  mind  to  it, 
and  feel  it  a  duty,  as  well  as  a  pleasure 
to  make  the  most  of  it.  It  is  almost 
always  those  who  have  least  money 
who  indulge  themselves  most,  and 
those  who  have  most  money  who 
indulge  themselves  least.  Do  you 
doubt  it  ?  The  reason  is  clear.  When 
you  have  something  to  lose,  it  is  a 
matter  of  importance  not  to  lose  it. 
If  you  have  nothing  to  lose,  to  plunge 
a  little  deeper  under  water  can  hurt 
no  one  but  the  unfortunate  tradesman 
who  gives  you  credit.  In  solemn  truth, 
there  can  be  no  kind  of  doubt  that 
excessive  expenditure  of  living  is  one 
of  the  great  vices  of  the  time ;  and  it 
would  be  well  for  all  of  us  if  the  power 


68  On  Money 

of  the  pulpit  were  more  frequently 
and  vigorously  exercised  in  sternly 
discountenancing  the  selfish  thought- 
lessness that  buys  what  it  cannot  pay 
for,  and  in  stigmatising  a  deliberate 
and  persevering  extravagance  by  its 
proper  name  of  fraud. 

Yet  carefulness  about  money  has 
its  own  dangers.  When  an  Apostle 
wrote  to  the  Church  of  God,  "  Let  your 
conversation  be  without  covetousness  " 
(Heb.  xiii.  5),  and  a  Hebrew  prophet 
ages  before  him  sternly  denounced  the 
then  growing  habit  of  adding  house  to 
house  and  field  to  field,  it  was  because 
then,  as  much  as  now,  every  virtue 
has  a  tendency  to  deteriorate  into  a 
corresponding  vice ;  and  if  to  waste 
money  is  a  fault,  to  love  it  is  a  sin. 
Now  it  is  much  easier  to  come  to  love 
it  than  some  of  us  may  suppose.  To 
be  always  worrying  about  small  ex- 
penses, or  regretting  past  losses,  or 
talking  about  prices,  or  even  comparing 
too  closely  and  anxiously  one  year's 


On  Money  69 

accounts  with  another's,  will  secretly, 
but  inevitably,  mildew  the  spirit  with 
a  kind  of  sordid  earthliness.  To  give 
away  will  become  harder,  for  we  shall 
soon  fancy  we  cannot  afford  it ;  and 
what  at  first  was  but  a  just  carefulness 
about  daily  spending,  if  not  watched 
against,  will  presently  change  even  a 
liberal  man  into  a  miser.  Then  your 
punishment  will  come  in  the  shape 
God  sees  you  to  need,  and  in  the 
shape  you  will  most  dread.  Either  the 
wealth  itself  will  be  taken  from  you, 
and  the  idol  of  gold  will  be  shattered 
before  your  eyes ;  or  some  child  or 
heir  for  whom  you  were  destroying 
your  very  soul  is  taken  from  you,  to 
the  incorruptible  treasure  of  the  better 
country;  and  so  the  Psalmist's  sentence 
comes  home  to  you  as  with  the  thrust 
of  the  sword  point :  "  He  heapeth  up 
riches,  and  knoweth  not  who  shall 
gather  them  "  (Psalm  xxxix  6). 

Perhaps  there  is  hardly  any  sin  to 
which  religious  people  are  more  prone 


70  On  Money 

than  covetousness ;  nor  any  kind  of 
inconsistency  which  worldly  people  are 
more  quick  to  detect,  and  more  severe 
to  denounce  ;  nor  any  which  a  righteous 
God  hates  with  more  perfect  hatred, 
and  more  inflexibly  pursues  with  His 
loving  chastisement  until  either  it  is 
scourged  out  of  the  soul,  or  the  sinner 
"s  left  to  his  idols. 

The  end  of  it  all  is  this.  If  money 
comes,  let  it  come.  He  who  sends  it 
surely  does  not  mean  it  to  hurt  us. 
We  need  not  fear  it  with  a  feeble 
terror,  though  no  one  sin  has  ruined 
so  many  souls  as  covetousness.  We 
will  not  spring  at  it  with  a  flutter  of 
excited  joy,  for  it  is  a  grievous  trial  to 
the  humblest  and  simplest. 

And  if  money  goes,  let  it  go  ;  only 
let  us  see  that  it  does  not  go  through 
folly  or  sin  of  ours.  Job  lost  his  in 
one  way,  and  Lot  lost  his  in  another. 
The  end  of  Job  was  a  crown  of  glory, 
but  the  candle  of  Lot  went  out  in 
hideous  night.  Probably  there  are  few 


On  Money  7 1 

of  us  who  have  lived  to  middle  life — 
very  few  indeed  who  have  passed  it — 
to  whose  door  could  be  laid  no  error  of 
judgment  in  spending  their  money,  no 
taint  of  conscience  in  making  it.  In 
this  greatest  of  great  trusts,  who  has 
not  sometimes  failed  ?  Conscience  has 
said,  "  Give,"  and  we  have  not  given. 
We  have  steeled  our  hearts,  and  sum- 
moned our  coldest  judgment  to  justify 
us  in  refusals,  which  now  we  would 
gladly  get  back  ;  but  it  is  too  late. 
Witnesses  to  our  self-indulgence  sur- 
round us  in  every  room  we  enter.  If 
we  have  done  something  for  our  Lord, 
our  heart  whispers  we  might  have  done 
so  much  more  ! 

But  there  is  time  in  front ;  and  He 
who  gives  us  power  to  get  wealth  will 
also  give  us  wisdom  to  use  it,  if  we 
really  ask  Him.  Let  us  be  wise, 
simple,  and  kind. 

Wise  as  those  who  have  been  called 
to  liberty,  and  mean  to  use  it ;  believ- 
ing in  God's  love  to  us,  understanding 


72  On  Money 

that  He  intends  and  expects  us  to  be 
happy  ;  with  a  healthy  conscience  that 
does  not  chafe  us  about  every  half- 
penny, yet  guided  in  all  Ve  do  by  the 
steady  purpose  of  a  heart  that  has  been 
taught  to  think  as  in  the  presence  of 
God. 

Simple,  so  that  money  shall  not  spoil 
us  with  its  influences  of  power,  nor 
vulgarise  us  with  its  tendencies  to  dis- 
play, nor  coax  us  with  the  softness  of 
its  luxury.  Surely  some  allowance 
should  be  made  for  rich  people  as  well 
as  for  poor.  If  God,  who  knows  their 
difficulties,  must  be  ready  to  bear  with 
them,  let  us  bear ;  but  let  us  also  see 
how  blessed  is  the  lot  of  those  who, 
being  neither  rich  nor  poor,  dwell  in 
the  temperate  zone  of  a  kind  of  safe 
table-land,  which  is  neither  chilled  by 
want  nor  swept  by  tropical  storms. 
Oh,  how  terrible  must  death  be  to  a 
rich  man,  who  has  never  so  used  his 
riches  as  to  have  friends  to  welcome 
him  into  the  heavenly  habitations,  and 


On  Money  73 

whose  only  idea  of  Lazarus,  in  the 
other  world,  is  that  he  should  still  wait 
upon  him  there ! 

And  kind,  for  "  blessed  is  he  that 
considereth  the  poor ; "  and  if  every 
one  is  poor  in  something,  in  which 
some  one  else  is  rich,  great  are  the 
opportunities  of  little  benevolences, 
not  only  from  equals  to  equals,  but 
from  one  class  to  another  class,  where- 
by but  a  small  amount  of  money  will 
enable  thoughtful  hearts  to  smooth  the 
hard  pillow  of  their  suffering  kinsmen. 
There  are  many  and  various  cups  of 
cold  water  which  tender  hands  can  lift 
to  parched  lips  with  the  promised 
blessing  of  their  divine  Redeemer ; 
many  little  gifts  and  many  secret  offer- 
ings which  He  will  publicly  recognise 
in  the  Great  Day.  Do  we  all  quite  see 
what  is  put  into  our  power  if  our 
hearts  are  kind,  though  our  means  be 
scanty  ?  Do  we  clearly  understand 
that  the  true  virtue  of  almsgiving  is  in 
being  our  own  almoners ;  that  the 


74  On  Money 

trifle  from  our  own  hand  pressed  into 
hot  and  thinned  fingers  with  a  smile 
that  gleams  with  sympathy,  and  a  word 
that  recalls  the  sympathy  of  Christ,  is 
worth  ten  times  more  to  man,  perhaps 
also  to  God,  than  a  purse  of  gold  sent 
through  a  stranger  ?  Oh,  there  are  so 
many  ways,  if  only  we  cared  to  think 
of  them  and  walk  in  them,  of  softening 
hardship,  and  cheering  sadness,  of  lift- 
ing off  burdens  from  heavy  shoulders, 
of  making  the  breaking  heart  to  leap 
with  joy.  If  the  night  is  wet,  and 
times  are  hard,  and  my  pocket  permits 
it,  no  police  table  of  fares  shall  prevent 
my  giving  a  sober  cabman  half-a- 
crown,  if  I  please,  instead  of  a  shilling. 
Street  beggars  let  no  one  aid,  they  are 
.a  cankerous  imposthume  on  English 
life  ;  but  the  thought  of  one's  own 
children  in  comfort  at  home  may  well 
make  the  heart  tender  to  boys  and  girls 
who  sweep  crossings ;  and  no  amount 
of  annual  subscriptions  to  philanthropic 
institutions  can  excuse  a  Christian  man 


On  Money  75 

from  personal  assistance  to  the  want 
that  meets  him  at  his  own  door.  To 
love,  even  as  we  are  loved — here  is 
the  effort  of  earth  and  the  blessedness 
of  heaven  !  No  doubt  there  are  many 
ways  of  showing  it ;  but  one  way  is 
money,  and  God  asks  for  it.  "  Inas- 
much as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
have  done  it  unto  me  "  (Matt.  xv.  40). 


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